This what the Sydney Morning Herald looked like this morning when the rest of the world’s serious media were reporting that Egypt’s ruling party’s headquarters was in flames. Contrast the screen shot from The Guardian.
All the SMH could manage - burried way down its front page in the “World” section - was a report that seemed like it was at least a day old about their reporter in Cairo having a nice cofee with a potential protester:
Enjoying breakfast at Caf Costa near Cairo’s Liberation Square, the focal point of this week’s groundbreaking street protests, a 23-year-old economics student, Ahmad Baba, told the Herald he would be joining the protests.
”I am reading the main newspapers here and I am struggling to find the protests event mentioned,” Baba said. ”Who does the government think it is fooling? The people are watching, they know what is happening. We must keep going until we have reform.”
It’s remarkably that they have a reporter live on the ground at the scene of one of the most important political changes in recent times they still can’t manage up to date coverage.
ABC News 24 coverage of the protests was not much better. When I got up and discovered via twitter and international news sites that the Egyptian situation had reach breaking point I turned on ABC’s “24 hour news channel” expecting them to have live coverage and analysis but no it was more rehashed news about the queensland floods. They did cross live to President Mubarak’s address but when they came back to the studio the anchor quickly summed up the main points of the speech and said: At this stage we are not sure what any of that means in practice. They then had an unidentified (except as “Kayt” I think, can’t remember the single first name used) Australian in Cairo making some uninsightful comments about what she had seen on the streets. Then with a pretty smile the anchor started up a chat with the sports reporter about Tennis at the Australian Open.
Two things about this coverage:
1. Isn’t it the job of a news program to call on experts to help viewers assess what speeches like Mubarak’s might mean rather than just saying “Oh we aren’t sure what that means”. This is exactly what CNN and Al Jazeera did by crossing to academic Egypt experts. It would have been very easy for ABC to have lined up an Australian academic to do the same. This has been an evolving story for days they should have these things in place.
2. The cross to “Kayt” was made purely on the basis that she was an Australian in Cairo, nothing she said gave any indication that she had any real understanding of the politics of the situation or that she had even spoken to any Egyptians that she was describing. Again their are numerous informed journalists in Cairo who could have been asked for commentary. That would have combined the live description provided by “Kayt” but could have backed it up with some informed analysis.
About an hour later most 24 hour news channels crossed live to the White House to hear president Obama’s response to the Mubarak speech. ABC News 24 couldn’t be bothered they were covering some important AFL news.
Australian coverage of the Middle East protests has been a complete embarrassment. Thank goodness for Al Jazeera English (webcast and ipad app) and twitter.
